SOURCE: Gassner, John. “Henry Becque: The Mordant Virtuoso.” In The Theatre in Our Times: A Survey of the Men, Materials and Movements in the Modern Theatre, pp. 114-22. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1954.

In the following essay, Gassner takes a close look at Becque's two “masterpieces,” The Vultures and The Woman of Paris.

At a time when good writing for the theatre is at a low ebb in most countries, not excluding our own, it may be well to return to the fountain-springs of the modern drama, which are now so muddied by the demands of commerce. And in returning to the sources we could do worse than glance at the struggles of Henry Becque, the one founder of dramatic modernism who is least known in America although James Huneker acclaimed him, Ashley Dukes translated him, and his plays found a place in all the influential theatres of...